“I think the luck factor is what keeps the game exciting. It’s the fact that on their day, anybody can win!”
Today, we have a young and upcoming poker player – Jai ‘jksisme’ Saha with us in our Rising Poker Stars segment. Jai finished runner-up for ₹9.95 Lac in The PokerBaazi Premier League’ (PPL) High Roller event on Thursday and went on to win the The ₹1 Crore GTD PPL#59 The MoneyMaker on Sunday. He had finished runner-up in the last ₹1 Crore GTD PPL The MoneyMaker that took place in March.
Here are the excerpts –
Hi Jai! Congratulations on your runner up finish in ₹60 Lakhs GTD PPL#44 High Roller and then becoming PPL#59 The MoneyMaker Champion. Can you give us a little insight about yourself, your educational background and all?
Thanks! I’m 25 years old. I grew up in Bombay and studied engineering in University of Warwick and that’s where I started playing poker.
Tell us about your poker journey. How it all started?
I started playing with my friends in school. We used to play regularly for fun. I started getting more into it during my college days where the players were much better and it gave me an incentive to improve. I started playing a lot of online poker on PokerStars and was totally hooked since.
Nowadays because of work commitments I only play on Sundays or if there is any big series tourney running midweek.
Are you planning to move full-time to poker or there is still time in it?
No, I don’t plan to ever play full time. I work in my family business. We have a technology company. I play poker for fun/passion. I still study poker from time to time. I enjoy all aspects of the game and want to keep improving and winning/moving up stakes but wouldn’t want to be fully dependent on it financially.
How do you choose a particular tournament to play?
The first and foremost is the prize pool basically. In the past, I’ve skipped the high roller tournaments on Indian sites that have 10+ % in rake. I don’t know if the sites have reduced it now or not- but paying 10k rake on a 1 Lac buy-in seems awful.
How many hours do you grind? Do you grind daily or just on weekends?
I only play Sundays, usually 10 hours every Sunday. Thursday is the first time in many months that I played during the week and its only because I had some bonus chips in my PokerBaazi account from last financial year that I wanted to get rid of. I definitely wouldn’t have played if I didn’t have those non-withdraw able bonus chips.
Which are the Indian platforms you enjoy playing at? Can you rank them in an order?
PokerStars, Spartan Poker and PokerBaazi in that order. I don’t play on any other Indian sites.
Who do you think is currently the best poker player in the Indian circuit?
I don’t really play on Indian sites so I don’t know too much about who are the best players currently.
Lastly, what makes this game beautiful or attractive that it keeps people glued?
I think the luck factor is what keeps the game exciting. It’s the fact that on their day, anybody can win! Chess is also a beautiful game but you could never convince me to wager money in a game v/s a grand-master whereas in poker people are okay with waging money playing v/s people they know are better than them because of the luck factor.
Stay tuned to check out the next Rising Poker Star!